December 1, 2016

Unless you have been out of touch for several days—say, locked in an epic game of Dungeons & Dragons—you have probably heard that Little People, the tiny figures that accompany Fisher-Price play sets, played a big role in the induction announcement of The Strong’s National Toy Hall of Fame on November 10. Little People, along with the game Dungeons & Dragons and the swing, took their place of honor among 59 previously inducted toys.

First introduced in 1959 as the removable passengers in the Safety School Bus pull toy, Little People have helped small children imagine big adventures ever since. Fisher-Price made the first Little People out of wood, but the figures have been molded out of plastic since the 1960s. The shape of Little People has changed over time too. The first figures were mostly cylindrical and grew wider as issues of toy safety arose in the 1980s. Then, when the figures were redesigned in 1997, they appeared with arms and legs and more colorful, three-dimensional faces. Over the years, Little People accompanied play sets that encouraged youngsters to explore the world beyond their homes and to imagine themselves at school or the airport, at the service station or the amusement park, and at the zoo or on the farm. Fisher-Price offered scores of play sets over the years, but children of successive generations remember the Little People in the sets best. The figures often became detached from their miniature buildings and vehicles, but the separation did not lessen the play value. Tucked in a small pocket for safe keeping or secured in a secret hiding place in the playroom, the Little People took on a life and purpose far removed from the make-believe play Fisher-Price initially intended.

November 18, 2016

On November 10, The Strong announced that the swing had been inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame, along with Fisher-Price Little People figures and the game Dungeons & Dragons. Though the play figures and the role-playing game surely fit the hall’s criteria for iconic toys, the swing seems so suited to hall of fame status that its 2016 induction falls into the “it’s high time” category.

Ancient historians neglected to record when the first swing was made. Maybe the first one was fashioned from plant fiber common to tropical forests—though if you believe Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan movies, jungle dwellers used these woody vines not for recreation but for traveling around the neighborhood. In less forested lands, someone, somewhere, attached a rope or two to an overhead tree branch, set a wooden plank at the other end, hopped on the seat, and began swaying to and fro. Where and when the first swing maker plied his or her craft is a mystery indeed, but the idea caught on.

November 18, 2015

Maybe you read a blog I wrote about four years ago proclaiming (politely, of course) that the puppet belonged in the National Toy Hall of Fame. That year, 2011, the dollhouse and Hot Wheels cars took their places among the classic toys in the hall—which may suggest that my talents at prognostication are somewhat wanting. On November 5, 2015, though, The Strong announced that the puppet, along with the game Twister and the Super Soaker, was inducted into the hall of fame. So, perhaps my abilities at making predictions are not bad, just my timing. As that earlier blog attested, puppets clearly meet the criteria for induction—longevity, iconic status, and fostering discovery, learning, or creativity.

Puppets have been around for centuries. They have been found in the ancient cultures of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. They have represented gods, heroes, and villains in long-ago tales of Japanese and Chinese cultures. Puppets have shown up in medieval Europe in Christian morality plays and secular theaters, in the Teotihuacan culture of the first millennium in Central Mexico, and in ceremonies and rituals of native peoples prior to European settlement in North America. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, puppets continued to entertain Americans in street performances and theaters.

September 23, 2015

From my childhood, I seem to recall an early TV advertising ditty that ended with: “Lucky us in a Greyhound bus!” Growing up in a village too small for Greyhound service, my introduction to the transportation line came from ads in magazines, newspapers, and television and from glimpses of Greyhound buses in movies, songs, and popular culture. It took me several bus rides during college and a wonderful donation to The Strong to appreciate Greyhound and its place in Americans’ fondness for travel and vacations.

The company started with just one car in 1914, transporting workers from Hibbing, Minnesota, to iron mines in nearby Alice. By the mid-1920s, Greyhound founder Carl Wickman had merged with other transport lines to serve several Midwestern states. Greyhound has grown in the century since then to serve more than 3,800 destinations across North America and to transport some 18 million passengers annually.

April 3, 2015

Staff at The Strong passed around several emails this week noting the passing of Gary Dahl, inventor of the Pet Rock, a wildly popular fad from the mid-1970s.

In 1975 Dahl, a California advertising man, dreamed up the notion of a Pet Rock and shipped it to a San Francisco gift show that August. His idea was so absurd, everyone had to have one. A Pet Rock was nothing more than a smooth stone from San Rosarita Beach in Mexico that cost Dahl a penny apiece at a local builders’ supply store. Dahl packaged the Pet Rock in a bed of fine wood shavings and placed it and a little booklet in a small cardboard box made to look like a pet carrier. Dahl’s silly “Pet Rock Training Manual” offered advice on turning the stone into a well-behaved pet. (The instructions for training the pet to play dead were particularly easy.) In a matter of months, Dahl’s creation caught on in stores all across the country.